The rest of the story on ‘earmark reform’

September 15, 2006

It sounded like progress. The House passed a measure yesterday that purports to improve transparency and accountability in federal spending by requiring lawmakers to attach their name to “[tag]earmarks[/tag]” contained in major [tag]spending[/tag] bills. Of all the Republican ethics-reform proposals unveiled earlier this year, this was the only measure to actually get a vote. It passed 245 to 171, with 24 Republicans and 147 Democrats voting against it.

“Everybody complains about it, but when it ultimately gets to the floor, how can you vote against it?” said Ron Bonjean, a spokesman for Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois.

Before anyone gets too excited about this “[tag]reform[/tag]” proposal, it’s probably wise to take a look at the fine print. Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Rules Committee, said, “We are blowing away the fog of anonymity.” Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) called it “shameful” and “a sham.” The latter is much closer to being right.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities published an interesting report today that goes through the measure in more detail than the major dailies. A few points to consider:

* While earmarked funding would be subject to this rule, [tag]earmark[/tag]ed special-interest tax breaks would be exempt from the rule, except for tax breaks that are limited to a single person or business…. Any tax cut or tax break benefiting as few as two individuals or entities — such as two large multinational corporations — would be fully exempt.

* Earmarks added to bills that bypass the committee process are also exempt.

* As the NYT noted, “The resolution would address only a small fraction of such [spending] provisions and, as an internal rule, would expire at the end of the current session in just a few weeks.”

So, in summary, this “earmark reform” doesn’t apply to special-interest tax breaks, includes loopholes large enough to drive a truck through, and won’t even be in effect when lawmakers start working again in January. As Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), a former chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, told reporters, “The majority has labored long and produced a mouse — or a fig leaf at best.”

For the record, I’d support meaningful reform to the spending process, but this ain’t it. Let this be a lesson to Congress-watchers everywhere: when House Republicans are willing to actually consider an ethics-reform measure, the devil’s in the details.

“The majority has labored long and produced a mouse — or a fig leaf at best.” – Obey

Fig leaves are meant to cover up embarassments. This is more like intending to remove the fig leaf and doing nothing more than brushing dandruff off the congressman’s shoulder. It exposes nothing, or at least not for very long. Pervs flash open their trench coats to little girls for longer than the Republican’ts are doing here.

  • This is why I appreciate your blog (and the internet in general). I’d heard about the vote and had assumed that the Republicans were so scared of November that they’d done something halfway decent. I should have known better from the outset, but barring that, I’d have gone on in happy misunderstanding if you hadn’t pointed to the details. Thanks.

  • The thing to do BEFORE the Repubs start waving this vote as “proof” that Dems are really soft on accountability, is to start waving this vote as proof that the Repubs only vote for accountability when it’s full of gooper loopholes to get around it.

  • Ditto N. Wells.

    Thanks, CB, for bringing this unsurprising chicanery to our attention in a simple straightforward manner.

    This is just as blatantly dishonest as lowering the Baghdad murder rate by redefining murder. Luckily it’s simple enough to explain to the undecided knuckledraggers.

  • To say it expires at the end of the current session is telling only half the story. There is no reason to believe the rule will not be revived in the 110th Congress, as the first thing usually done is to adopt wholesale all the rules of the earlier Congress. The earmark rule would therefore be revived along with every other rule from the 109th Congress. It would have to be specially omitted to prevent its revival, and I don’t think it likely that the House is going to turn around and do away with it a few months from now.

  • The pork reform bill will need to be *revised* (and its teeth sharpened), rather than revived as soon into January as might be. Of course, hopefully, by then there’ll be *no* Dems willing to hold it up (remember? Stevens wasn’t the only one putting a secret block on the pork-database system).

    And, as soon as *that* is taken care of, a new bill — going after the tax loopholes — needs to be put into place too. People who objected to this bill (same source) were those who said: “why me, why not them?” Well, I believe in the old Soviet rule of democracy: “piss on *everyone*”. Close the d…d tax loopholes *also*.

    Those, BTW, are of particular interest to me at the moment, because one of the R “runners” for the House from my state (VA) is talking about bringing Chevron and letting it bastardize the coast around VA Beach. That’s the same Chevron which has — just recently, if we’re to believe it — discovered gushes of new oil in the Gulf (US, not Iraq) and is fighting to keep its tax exemption (which “slipped” into a Congressional bill “somehow”)

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